Controversial catholic first ladies have a history of proving powerful material for musicals. So it is fitting that a revival of Rice and Lloyd-Webber’s Evita came into London just before the opening of David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s show about Imelda Marcos, half of the dictatorship partnership that was overthrown in a peaceful revolution in the Philippines in 1986.Although the creators of Here Lies Love tend to twitch whenever Evita is mentioned, the parallels between the protagonists of the two musicals are uncanny: both were poor girls who used their youthful beauty to move into showbiz and meet ambitious young politicians (Juan Perón/Ferdinand Marcos) with whom they subsequently transformed their nations and themselves – drawing on the iconography of Mariology
23 October 2014, The Tablet
Our Lady of the dance floor
Here Lies Love Dorfman, National Theatre, London
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